Morning Links: Sotheby’s Buyouts Edition

Eighty Sotheby’s employees, or 5 percent of the auction house’s staff, have taken its buyout offer, which was being offered to cut company expenses. [The New York Times]

Meanwhile, ahead of the release of Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, 600 rare Star Wars toys went for a total of $500,000 in a Sotheby’s online sale. [Rolling Stone]

MUSEUM TRIPS

Chef Ignacio Mattos and restauranteur Thomas Carter will bring their hip downtown joint Estela to the Met Breuer. Thomas P. Campbell, the Met’s director, believes it might spice up the museum’s reputation for being bland. [The New York Times]

Here’s a deep dive into the Westfries Museum’s process of trying to get back 24 stolen paintings, which were found in Ukraine last week. [The New York Times]

After profusely hating on MoMA, Jerry Saltz reconsiders and writes an essay about how much he loved the museum this year. “The greatest collection of modern art on Earth—now and forever, probably,” he writes. [Vulture]

How’s this for postmodern: the United Kingdom’s Intellectual Property Office released a statement that public-domain images of art can’t “be considered as ‘original,’ ” therefore placing them under fair-use law. [Hyperallergic]

New Orleans–based artist Ally Burguieres claims that Taylor Swift didn’t give credit for her artwork when the pop star posted it on social media. Swift’s PR sees it the other way, calling Bruguieres’s open letter about it “an unfortunate effort to extract more money and more publicity.” [NOLA.com]

A SCHJELDAHL TWOFER

Peter Schjeldahl reviews the Dia Foundation’s Robert Ryman show, which features “a kind of mute art that, generating reverent and brainy chatter, puts uninitiated citizens in mind of the emperor’s new clothes.” [The New Yorker]

And, in another review, punnily titled “The Dripping Point,” Schjeldahl shares some thoughts on MoMA’s Jackson Pollock show, an exhibition of every single work by the Abstract Expressionist in its collection. [The New Yorker]

PUBLIC-ART HAPPENINGS

The British government is doing some intense research to figure out where stolen public art works disappeared to in the years after World War II. [The Independent]

Grand Forks, North Dakota, has launched a $60,000 plan for public art. [Grand Forks Herald]